In highfalutin watering holes and far-flung whistle-stops, these local newspapers keep their hives abuzz.

The Big Bend Sentinel, Marfa, Texas

The Big Bend Sentinel, Marfa, Texas

Just months after printing its first issue, in 1926, the Big Bend Sentinel consolidated with an older paper, one whose name presaged its hometown's unlikely second life: Marfa New Era.

After World War II, the decade-long "Drought of Record" dried up the land, and much of the town's social life with it. Giant was filmed here in 1955; years passed without further incident. Then, in 1972, came art world-weary minimalist sculptor Donald Judd, who (with the Dia Foundation footing the bill) bought half the town, becoming its biggest employer.

Unsurprisingly, then, the Sentinel is flanked by Judd holdings, and its stark interior is furnished in the master's style. A framed topographic map of Texas is at once handy reference and objet d'art. On the front page, culture shares column inches with immigration and the drug war, along with whatever celebrity gossip falls into the paper's lap.

The Big Bend Sentinel, Marfa, Texas

The Big Bend Sentinel, Marfa, Texas

Character/actor Randy Quaid and his wife Evi came to Marfa in 2009, selecting a building on North Highland Street, across from the Sentinel, as the site of the future Randy Quaid Museum. (Like Judd before him, Quaid was seduced.) When the couple was arrested for nonpayment of hotel bills, the story got picked up by all the major entertainment news outlets. But the Sentinel snagged the exclusive — soberly headlining it: "Evi Quaid tells all, mostly."